A Game of Gods
by Paladin of Farore
Summary: Centuries after his death, Percy ascends to godhood to help the war-torn world. The great prophecy foretells the coming of a new hero to save the world. Katniss Everdeen. Seeing her fate, Percy sets out to guide her through the Hunger games to her destiny. BACK FROM HIATUS!
1. Prologue: A God's Vow

I've been watching Katniss Everdeen for years now.

Don't give me that look. It's not like that. She's far too young for me, and besides, I'm a married man. Trust me, if Annabeth honestly thought I was using my powers to spy on mortal girls, she'd beat me within an inch of my eternal life. Of all the crazy stuff I've done since becoming a god, creeping on girls isn't one of them.

I've watched her since the day her father died. He died in a mining explosion, that's what people say. I know from the get-go that's crap. Because Phillip Everdeen was no ordinary coal miner. He was a half-blood, a son of the song god Apollo. He was no ordinary son of Apollo either, he was one married to a daughter of Persephone, goddess of spring time. That made Katniss and her sister mixed-bloods, like my kids were. Half-bloods who have two divine grandparents instead of a single divine parent.

Phillips gift for archery and wondrous singing voice had come from the heavens themselves, yet they hadn't been enough to save him from the monstrous wyrms that tunneled into the mines. Wyrm's shells explode when they die; incinerating any who'd managed to survive the initial attack.

That day had shattered Katniss' heart beyond repair, leaving her forever closed off from the rest of the world. That was the day she caught my eye, and from that day on, I've observed her from the shadows, taking in every meticulous detail of her world. She's a stubborn one. Really stubborn. It reminds me of Clarisse, except she lacked Clarisse's rage issues and tendency to break things when angry. That's a plus.

She doesn't notice me of course. To her human eyes I appear to be an old man with a tangled beard limping down the streets with his cane. That's my usual disguise when I'm watching her. It's easy to overlook, and when you're tailing a seasoned hunter, you have to do everything possible to stay hidden.

Other times, when she's in the forest with the Hawthorne boy, I'm a mockingjay soaring above the trees, watching her from the sky. That's really stupid on my part, I know. Taking to sky is practically inviting Zeus to smite me on the spot. But it's worth the risk. She's worth the risk. Because she's the one who's going to save us all. I know it. Her image had been the center point of my dreams for ages. A girl with a bow and a braid, wreathed in flames that wrapped themselves a hundredfold around the earth. Her presence alone will bring great change to the world. Change that's desperately needed.

Every step she takes, every arrow she loses into the hearts of her prey, screams of the destiny laid out before her. Even then, before that terrible day when her sister's name is drawn for the Games, she was ablaze with power. Not my kind of power. Not the power of a god, but a power beyond that. The power of fate.

She doesn't realize it of course. She's always been unaware of the effect she has on people. How she turns eyes as she passes and influences events and people in ways she could never truly understand.

Peeta Mellark understands. From the moment he first heard her sing; his destiny was forever entwined with hers. She stole his heart in that moment. And no amount of monsters, torture or pain would free it from her grasp. That kid's in for a tough love life, I can tell, because Katniss' emotional state takes 'playing hard to get' to a whole new level. Love is a game he'll take to well though. Like Katniss, he has ichor in his veins. A son of Aphrodite, one who unlike his half-siblings inherited a natural understanding of the emotion instead of the vain obsession with physical beauty most of his mother's children have. And, unlike the vast majority of people, he possesses a pure heart untainted by hatred. He too appeared in my dreams, on his knees, drenched in blood, offering a shadowy unknown object to the girl he loved.

The Great prophecy Rachel spoke on her deathbed so many years ago had foretold her coming. _A maiden born of sun and shrub._ Part of me wonders if this is how the gods felt about me when I was a kid. It's a stupid thing to think, really. Most of the gods saw me as a threat, not a hope, and wanted me disposed of before I could do any damage, ignoring the fact that my prophecy said I might save Olympus instead of destroy it. Another part of me hates myself for watching her likes this, like how the gods watched me during my mortal life. I'd hated feeling like a pawn in their games, and I knew Katniss would hate it twice as much.

As I follow her through the dirty streets of District twelve, eager to see her life and what it is that makes her what she is, my heart is filled with sadness. The poverty, the violence. This terrible, terrible place that the world has become under the reign of the Capitol. I wonder how it is that in the short millennia since my lifetime as a man, that North America was reduced from a western superpower to a dystopian hell scape dominated by greed and fear. Anger fills me at the site of it alone. Then there are the Hunger Games…What society, no matter how barbaric, could find entertainment in the deaths of innocent children? What kind of monsters demanded a child as sacrifice, a sacrifice doomed to either die or butcher other kids? The Hunger Games are an event so heinous, that I want to reveal myself to the world. I want to float above the capitol and pour out upon it my divine wrath. To burn the glass towers to the ground and revel in the deaths of these despicable creatures that dared call themselves human beings.

But I can't do that. Divine law prohibits a god from interfering directly in the human world. Unfortunately, demolishing a heavily populated city counted as 'interfering'. Worse even than this was the fact that camp half-blood, along with Olympus itself, moved with the flame of the west. This meant that instead of being on the east coast near Ney York, the camp was now right beside the Capitol in a place called district one, and had been repurposed as a training center for careers, children raised to kill and be killed in the games. Zeus and the other gods somehow saw this as fulfilling the their promise to me to look after their demigod children. The majority of them were born into the wealthier districts and the capitol, giving them greater opportunities in life than they'd ever had. The mist surrounding the camp had been thickened and changed so that even mortals were trained at the camp now, unaware of it's true nature.

Most tributes out of the career districts were half-bloods. The children of Hermes, Athena, Ares, and all the others were represented among their ranks, and they almost always won. How the gods became so twisted in the way they perceive their promises, I have no idea. Whatever their reason, my fellow gods make me sick to my stomach. If they'd allowed the world to fall so far they hadn't been doing their jobs.

The Games were the reason I'd become a god in the first place, the reason I'd taken the god's offer of divinity and left behind my peaceful existence in the afterlife.

My mortal life ended much like any other mans. Thankfully it lacked being mauled by an attacking monster, and included old age, and being surrounded by friends and loved ones. My kids and grandkids, Grover, Thalia, who looks young as ever, Tyson, Chiron, Clarisse, and of course, Annabeth.

"Wait for me"she told me as she grasped my withered old hands, her wise gray eyes fixing me with the look that had so entranced me when we were kids at summer camp. Age had added wrinkles to her face and grayed her golden princess hair, but she still looked the same to me. Dear gods, she was beautiful.

"Of course" I say grinning up at her. Not even once had I considered trying for three lifetimes. Wouldn't be worth it. "It wouldn't be Elysium without you." She smiles and presses her lips to mine. My son and daughters move to her side. Their hands come together atop mine, and for a single moment we simply sit there as a family, basking in each other's presence. Cheesy as it probably sounds, it was a moment of purest bliss. This was what life was all about. The people you shared it with.

The people I loved were here beside me. A pouch of dramchas was in my pocket for the ferry ride into the underworld. I was ready to go.

"Percy" my father's voice reaches my ears. Suddenly he appears at my side, his radiant tan skin standing out among my kid's pale New Yorker coloring.

"Hey dad" I say weakly. It feels kinda weird calling him that when physically he looks like he could be my son. Not aging really knocks the family dynamic out of whack. "Come to see me off?" He nods solemnly.

"That, and to ask you one last time to join me in Olympus." I'd been given this offer twice before. First after the defeat of Kronos. Second the night before my wedding. "I'd love to have you by my side, son. The decision is yours." Despite his godly features, I can see sadness form in his sea-green eyes, the ones I shared, as he looked down at the ground. He knew what my answer would be. Even if I could bring my family with me to the heavens, I would still turn him down. For a moment I just stare at him, before slowly looking to Annabeth and her loving eyes, then on to my kids and grandkids. It was the easiest decision in the world.

"Sorry dad" I tell him sincerely. "Godhood just doesn't sound like my kind of thing. I've got old friends to visit." I chuckle a bit. "Compared to you I know I'm young, but I feel…tired. It'll be good to just rest for a while. I really am sorry, dad." The sea god smiles sadly.

"I understand. Goodbye son. Go forth into the next life, with all my love." Leaning down, he pressed a bearded kiss to my forehead. Everything had been said and done. So it was time to be.

"I love you all" I say to room around me. As they say it back, I feel myself fading away, and I'm enveloped in an ethereal white light.

The ride on Charon's ferry is a blur to me now. I can barely remember anything of it apart from the vague shadows shifting on the banks of the river Styx. The end of the ferry ride however, I remember clear as crystal. Suddenly I find myself sitting up on a snow white shore. Salty smells of the sea tickled my nose, and a calm warmth hung in the air around me. Slowly, I turn to see a forest of fruit bearing trees spread out across a beautiful island. Mountains rise in the distance, and songbirds shout their cries high above. And, approaching me from beneath the trees, was a group of familiar faces.

Everyone was there. All those who I'd loved in life gathered there to greet me. My mother and Paul. Beckendorf and Selina, hand in hand. Nico Di'Angelo, who looked more at home here in the land of the dead than he ever had on earth. His sister Bianca and Zoe Nightshade, still wearing the silver uniforms of Artemis' huntresses. The Stoll brothers, and Rachel, now free of the oracles spirit.

As I stand they envelop me in a tight, pig-pile like embrace. I smile. This really is paradise. This was a place I could spend eternity.

Three years later I kissed Annabeth on those same white shores. That was when my paradise was made complete. Eternity didn't sound long at all when it was with her. And so we lived there in Elysium for many, many years. As time passed our children and grandchildren began to join us, and our happiness only grew. Those years are somewhat of a haze to me now. I remember them, but like a dream that I'd just woken up from. Those dream-like memories hold nothing but happiness, until the first I peered into the well of viewing, the portal through which the dead view the living.

Over seven hundred I'd gone without looking, and when I finally did, I would never regret anything more. The world was burning. Continents had been mangled beyond recognition, forests burned and the skies billowed thick with smog. The seas had risen up to swallow bits of the land, including Manhattan. The United states were gone, replaced by a nation called Panem. An uprising of it's thirteen districts is crushed by a tyrannical capitol, and the survivors and their descendants are forced to watch as their children are thrown into a game of gladiator style combat to the death as punishment. What in the gods' names had happened to the world I'd saved twice? What had happened to the world where I'd raised my children and met those I called friends? That world was gone now. Burned to ashes by the passing of time and the neglectfulness of the deities I call family.

In devastated anguish I stumbled to the white shores. The breaking waves tickle my toes. The sensation fills me with guilt. Can I honestly live here forever while the world lies in ruin, and the human race decays in misery and suffering? Annabeth comes to my side, wearing the same horrified look. For more than an hour we just stood there, eyes locked. We could have entire conversations like this, just with body language and eye movements. We knew each other so well no words were needed. Solemnly, I turned away from her, taking her hand in mine, and looked skyward. There was only one way I could make a difference. I had to re-enter the world. But I couldn't do it as a mortal man. My time as a man was up. There was only one way.

"Father!" I screamed to the heavens. "Does your offer still stand?"

A long moment passes in silence. Then, just as had happened when I first entered the afterlife, a white light bloomed around me.

When I opened my eyes this time, I was standing. I still held Annabeth's hand, and in the other hand I held Riptide. An unearthly golden glow shimmered around the blade. It had grown larger and longer, yet it still felt light as a feather in my hand. My clothes had been replaced by white armor gilded with gold, and a green laurel crown sat atop my head. Power unlike anything I'd ever felt before pulsed beneath my skin. Surging, pulsing power. My wife wore a glorious white gown just like her wedding dress. She looked young again, and just as beautiful as ever. Looking up, I realized where we were. We stood in the center of the Olympian throne room. Gathered around us was the congregation of the heavens. The twelve great Olympian thrones, as well as the thrones of the minor gods built between them, were all occupied.

All the gods were there. Ares snarled at me threateningly. He couldn't be that happy to see me, even though he was finally getting his wish for a version of me he could use as a punching bag without killing it. My father smiled at us warmly. Aphrodite gave a friendly if not flirtatious wave. Artemis nodded her head respectfully, and Thalia smiled at her side. My mother-in-laws eyes were trying to bore into my skull. She looked the least pleased to see me. No doubt she had voted against my ascension. Anything concerning me, especially my marriage to her daughter, was negative in the wisdom goddess' eyes.

Then the gods stood as one, and each of them fell to one knee. Some of them did this quite reluctantly, only half kneeling.

"Hail" Zeus proclaimed in a loud voice that thundered across Olympus. "Perseus, God of heroes." The gods rose and reseated themselves in their thrones.

And so began my life as a god.

A feast was given in honor of my appointment, and a mansion like-palace was set aside for us, but I hardly paid attention to them. As soon as was possible I left the heavens and ventured down to see the earth myself. The horrors I saw are forever etched into my memory. I vowed on that day I would make a difference. That I would help mankind in ways the other gods refused to. Even if it meant breaking every divine law, even if it meant provoking the hatred of the other gods, including my father. He'd fallen from grace in my eyes. No being who would let the world suffer like this was any kin of mine.

For nearly two decades I searched for the world for any sign of a way to save it. Anything that could help mankind without direct interference. I found nothing. Then the dreams had started. Like the dreams that had haunted me as a half-blood, they showed shadowed images of what was to come. Stunted prophecy with only a hint of truth to them. And those images led me to Katniss Everdeen. The girl meant to save us all. Or so I hope. Bits of the prophecy matched up with her life, and trust me, speaking as a guy who's been through the whole 'destined to save the world' thing, that meant something really important.

On the day of the 74th reaping I'm among the crowd gathered in front of the hall of justice, this time disguised a middle aged man in the drab clothing of the Seam. No one would notice me like this. My eyes are fixed on the platform with as much hatred as I can muster. The reaping are my least favorite part of the games. Watching families being torn apart as the children are thrust into battle, it breaks my heart.

At this point I knew Katniss had a destiny. But what exactly it was I had no idea. I'd expected this to be just another reaping. Another gesture of relentless evil by the capitol. Then Primrose Everdeen's name was called. My heart, pumping with ichor, seized in my chest. I watch frozen as Katniss dashes through the crowd to her sister's side, face painted with horror beyond comprehension.

"I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute!" When those words leave her lips, I close my eyes. This was her destiny coming to a head. The image of her wreathed in flames danced across my mind. This was meant to happen. Terrible as it was. I open my eyes, and watch Katniss climb atop the stage. The stupidly dressed capitol woman calls for applause for district twelve's first ever volunteer. There's no response. Only silence. Pressing three fingers to my lips, I raised them high for all to see. A sign of love, honor, and respect. Then just as I expect, Peeta Mellark's name is called. The great prophecy at work.

I turn my gaze to the drunken heap that was Haymitch Abernanthy, the district's only victor. He slurs something barely audible before tumbling forward off the stage. Pitiful. He'd be their only lifeline in the arena. If I was to help them, it would have to be through him. Despite his drunkenness, Haymitch was a valuable asset by himself. He was smart. He was a half-blood too. A son of Athena, naturally, considering his brains. My brother-in-law. He hates the gods, hates them for doing nothing while the world burned. I can't blame him of course. He's right. Perhaps I'll convince him to help me help them. It would take an awful lot of persuasion, but perhaps.

Turning away from the platform I stalked from the crowd and into a nearby alleyway. No one noticed the light popping noise I gave off as I teleport back to my palace on Olympus. I have to prepare for the games.

A new hero's journey was beginning. And I would be there to guide her on it.


	2. Council of Heroes

**READ THIS FIRST: From this point on, the story will be told in third person instead of first. I'm doing this for two reasons, one, to frame the first chapter as a sort of prologue, and two, because last chapter was literally my first ever attempt at first person, and I honestly don't think I can write the whole story that way. It just isn't my style. **

**I've done a lot of debating with myself about where I'm going to go with this story. Originally I'd planned to start out between Hunger games and Catching fire, and just make reference to Percy helping Katniss through the first Hunger games. But now I've decided to at least do some parts of the games, and continue to weave the two fandom universes together. So, with that in mind, it might be a little bit of time before we get to the bits about Katniss and Peeta, even though they're central to the plot. Thanks and Happy reading. **

Percy shifted uneasily in his seat. The fabric of his clothing was more than uncomfortable. They were stiff, hot, and quite possibly the tackiest garments every created. So they went perfectly with the rest of his outfit, which included a bright pink wig that poofed out a foot above his head, a variety of jeweled rings on his fingers, and sparkling eyelashes. He felt like a circus clown who'd stepped on a landmine in a costume shop. He tugged at his lace-trimmed collar. Dear gods was it hot out. The capitol's summer air was sweltering, boiling the inhabitants like potatoes over a campfire.

"Stop fidgeting" Annabeth told him from the left. "You'll blow our cover."

He looked up at his wife with a faux glare. She too was disguised in the ridiculous clothing of the capitol. A lime green wig tied in oversized loops that hung behind her ears, a mauve skirt fringed with bangles fell to her ankles, and a pair of oversized orange sunglasses covered her intelligent gray eyes. In Percy's opinion, only she could make this crap look good. She sat with her legs crossed and a tiny leather book open on her knee. Occasionally she'd scribble something down with a black feather quill. As the goddess of archways, a minor position but an important one, she was forever coming up with new ideas or taking note of architecture she found interesting.

"You can't be comfortable in this stuff either" Percy replied.

"I'm not" Annabeth said back, turning a page in her book. "But I'm actually trying to hide it."

A small smile tugged at his lips. Some people would call their little squabbles like that a fight, but after more than eight hundred years together, they knew better than that. Their relationship had always worked a bit like that. They'd get into a squabble, sometimes for fun, because they just loved to tease one another, one of them would get angry, then they'd make up and kiss down by the beach. This trend had continued all the way through their marriage and into the afterlife, and neither of them would change it for the world.

Leaving his clothes alone, Percy looked back over the crowd gathered beneath them. They sat at a semicircular table on a balcony overlooking the Capitol square. A crowd surpassing a hundred thousand was gathered on either side of the road the tribute's chariots would ride in on, their chattering screams of anticipation reverberating off the glass of the surrounding buildings. Some held signs, others waved festive little 'HG' flags, and all of them were dressed in ridiculously colorful clothes no sane person would ever wear. Apparently sanity had a different definition in this millennia.

Percy shook his head. He watched the games every year, he forced himself to, but every time they just made him sicker and sicker. The Hunger Games were like a sick twisted version of capture the flag at camp-half blood. In these games, maiming was not only allowed, it was encouraged. Maiming made for good television, and ultimately that was what the games were, a reality tv show where kids butchered each other. This was what the people of the capitol watched for entertainment. It was an event looked forward to all year, where bets would be made and parties would be held, all ignoring the fact that at the game's end, twenty-three kids would lie dead. These people had no shame at all.

Shameful didn't even begin to describe their actions. Atrocious was more like it.

He and Annabeth weren't alone at their table. The three other chairs were filled by three ghostly figures whose forms shimmered in the light, and who didn't really seem to be entirely there at all. To passersby, they appeared as three round-faced capitol children out with their parents to see the opening for the games. This of course wasn't the case.

At the far end sat Jason Grace, son of Zeus, or Jupiter, as he insisted on calling him. In life he'd been one of the leaders of Camp Jupiter, the half-blood camp who honored the Roman persona of the gods. For a thousand years the Greek and Roman demigods had been mortal enemies, so much so that the gods had used the mist to separate them forever. Until that is Hera had wiped Percy and Jason's memories and swapped them places. That had been an exchange of leaders between the two camps, a way to bring them together for the coming conflict. Jason, Percy, and Annabeth had been among the seven chosen half-bloods named by the second great prophecy to stop the earth goddess Gaia and her army of rampant giants. They'd stopped them, and the Greek-Roman alliance had thankfully lasted past the end of the war.

In the years afterward the two camps had worked together to protect and train the worlds half-bloods, and their rivalry had slowly turned to friendship.

Being the leaders of their respective camps, Percy and Jason had formed a friendship of their own. They had been among the most powerful demigods of their time, and together their battle strategies rarely ever failed. That was why Percy had called him here. He needed advice for the games from someone he trusted, so that meant none of the gods.

Jason's sky blue eyes scanned the crowd critically. A master of the arts of war, he was trained to spot things others didn't. Unfortunately, being a ghost he couldn't lob lightning bolts at the capitol people and vent some of his anger. Camp Jupiter had been absorbed into Camp Half-blood when the flame of the west had moved. They were a single training camp now. A camp that trained murderer children.

"_Futuo" _he muttered in Latin.

At Jason's left sat Zoe Nightshade, former lieutenant for the hunters of Artemis. Daughter of the titan Atlas, and the namesake of Percy and Annabeth's second daughter, she'd been summoned for her expertise concerning hunting, the forest, and heroines of all sorts. Unlike Percy and Jason, she watched the surrounding crowds with sad eyes. Before her death she'd lived for over two thousand years, and she'd seen eras of war, pestilence and death, and this era was as bad as any she'd seen. Worse, in some ways.

In the middle of the table sat perhaps the most importantly ghostly guest. He was a reasonably tall man with olive skin and the gray ashen eyes of the Seam. He were a drab coal miners uniform, and his gaze stared blankly off into the distance wearing an expression of near-absolute despair. This was Phillip Everdeen, son of Apollo and father of Katniss Everdeen. Several years ago he'd died battling wyrms in the coal mines where he worked, leaving his family behind. He'd been called to this meeting to help his daughter in any way he could. The terror of having his little girl in the arena had hold of him so tight it was suffocating him. No parent could bear to watch their child go through such things. Not without breaking inside.

As the god of heroes Percy was able to call upon the spirits of dead heroes, those who had died battling monsters, or had lived stalwart lives of heroism. Thankfully, these included many of his friends, and his powers allowed him to call on them for advice any time he should need it. Now was definitely one of those times. Getting someone through the games was far different that planning for a game of capture the flag or a quest. Here, there could be no direct interference. Being a god gave him more tangible power, but it also weakened him in many, many ways. All he could really do was watch from the sidelines, influencing the circumstances, and giving the occasional nudge in the right direction.

Percy placed a hand on Phillip's shoulder comfortingly.

"Are you alright?" he asked quietly. Blinking, Phillip shook his head.

"It's like something out of my nightmares" he said, voice catching in his throat. "Her or Prim's name coming out of that bowl. One of them coming here, to this" he gestured to the swarming, bloodthirsty crowds. "Now they're all coming true."

"Don't worry, Phillip" Annabeth told him soothingly. "She's going to make it through this. The great prophecy tells us she's meant for something big. It doesn't say anything about her dying, which means she _has_ to live." Zoe nodded in agreement.

"Your daughter has the spirit of a true maiden, Phillip" she obviously felt awkward addressing a man by their first name. In all of her long life, she'd interacted with very few men, and Percy was the only one she was sure she liked. "She would make an excellent huntress. Perhaps when she returns home, Thalia will pay her a visit in the forest and ask her to join the hunt." Phillip gave a weak smile. He'd met the hunters of Artemis when he was a teenager just learning to shoot a bow. His father had introduced him, and taught him to flirt with the huntresses. Unsuccessfully, of course. When it came down to it, Artemis's hunters were basically warrior nuns. Lots of ass kicking, no boys.

"That's nice of you to say, Zoe. But I don't think Katniss will join even if offered. After all she's been through the last few years…me dying, and then coming here, she doesn't seem like a person who'd have any wish to live forever." A long silence followed. Percy felt his pity for the man grow by the minute. Knowing your child longed for death had to be just as hard, if not harder, than watching them fight for their life. It had to make you feel like a failure as a parent, like you hadn't done your job right. That you'd failed them.

"That," Percy said, trying to break the tension. "And it would mean she'd have to give up on guys. She's already got the Mellark kid wrapped around her finger, even if she doesn't know it. Him and her hunter friend, Gale." Phillip smiled a little.

"They're good boys. Just like their father's. Gale has John's determination, and Peeta has Wade's heart…I think he'd be better for Katniss, honestly. He's someone to mellow out her fire, and if he's as similar to his father as I think he is, then he loves with everything he has." Off to the side Zoe was rolling her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Why anyone would refuse being a hunter for something as silly as boys, I'll never know." She shook her head as if she were speaking common sense.

"I did" Annabeth said, closing her book. "And most girls like boys, Zoe. Just because Heracles was a dick doesn't mean all men are scum." Zoe gave a tiny huff.

"I don't think _all _men are scum" she glanced at Percy. "Just most of them. No offense" she told Phillip. He chuckled.

"None taken."

"The baker kid's what confuses me about all this" said Jason, speaking for the first time in a while. "Percy, you said he was in your dreams, that he's important to the prophecy. But how can he be if he's here? He and Katniss can't _both _win, and he can hardly have a big destiny if he's just gonna die in the arena." Percy shrugged.

"I don't know. But he is Important, I do know that. His destiny is connected to hers. Really connected. Here, watch" Raising a hand, he projected the final image of his dream above the table for he and his companions to see. Hanging in the air like a hologram was the image of Katniss, surrounded by fire. It crackled and whirled in great tongues along her arms, and blazed in all directions, giving off a bright, golden light that shimmered across the onlooker's faces. In front of her knelt Peeta, drenched in blood. Scars crisscrossed his bare back and marred his handsome face. In his hands he held an unidentifiable object, which he was offering Katniss, a loving smile curling his lips. Percy waved the image away. It really didn't tell them much. But not nothing. "He's going to suffer," Percy said after a moment. "Badly, and for her, I think. Maybe he is going to die in the arena, martyring himself to protect her. Seems like the thing he'd do."

"It does" Annabeth agreed. "Hopefully, it won't come to that." She checked the bedazzled pocket watch that hung from her fur handbag. "The parade's starting soon. We'll get to see who Katniss is up against." She reopened her book and took out an owl feather quill. Since they'd been watching the games she and Percy had taken down each and every tributes name. Someone had to remember the victims. Then they wouldn't die as nameless sacrifices, but as real human beings, with faces, feelings, and families who wept at their passing. It was the least they could do. All they could do, really. What with the law against interfering.

Down below them, the crowds slowly began to quiet as the announcer's voice boomed over the square. None of Percy's crew was really listening, though they'd take note of the names. They'd be honoring the tributes, not the horrible people prancing them about like show ponies before beheading them two weeks later. With a thunderous roar from the crowd, the parade began as District one's chariot rolled onto the runway up to the stage set at the square's head.

Marvel and Glimmer, they were called, dressed in the dazzling jewels that their district was famous for.

"The girl's definitely a Venus child" Jason said at once. "She has that look about her."

"Well of course she's mine, sweetheart!" a dreadfully bubbly voice said from behind them. Percy groaned. He knew that voice anywhere. Groaning, he turned to see Aphrodite, recognizable even in the clothes of the capitol, standing in the doorway to their suite.

"What are you doing here?" he asked in a polite deadpan. Zoe looked like she had something much less civil to say. Though her features looked calm as always, her pale colored eyes were seething with rage. Aphrodite pointed to the balcony three down from theirs. A large, muscular man in a studded leather jacket sat there. He gave them a rather unenthusiastic wave. Ares, god of war.

"Ares and I are on a date. We both have kids in the game you know. Isn't that why you're here?"

"No" Annabeth snapped irritably, marking her place in the book. "Like we've told you before Aphrodite, neither Percy or I have any demigod children with mortals. Only each other, and they're all in the underworld." That was true. Among the Olympian gods, only Percy and Annabeth were anything near monogamous.

"Oh, right" Aphrodite waved off the answer indifferently. "Why don't you come sit with us, Percy? We'd love the company." She said it with such playful enthusiasm it made Annabeth want to scream. The love goddess was treating an event centered around gladiatorial combat between children like a Justin Bieber concert, though gladiatorial combat was only about half as terrible as a Justin Bieber concert.

"No thanks" Percy said through gritted teeth. "We're visiting with old friends, actually" he gestured to the three ghosts. "But maybe some other time."

Bidding them goodbye, which for Aphrodite included kissing Percy on each cheek like, the goddess left their balcony. Percy slapped a palm to his forehead.

"I hate them both so much" he mumbled. "They make me ashamed to be a god." They did. Of all the gods, those two had the most demigod children, a lot of whom ended up here at the games.

"You're twice the god either of them is" Phillip told him, face etched with genuine sincerity. "You know what it is to be a man. You actually give a damn about this world. Not like them, not like my father. He drives the sun chariot overhead every day, yet he doesn't do a thing." He shook his head. Percy smiled gratefully. The years had taught him to be mostly indifferent towards the other gods. His father he still loved, but they were distant now. The other gods didn't support the games, well, except for Ares, but they didn't actively try to stop them either.

By now the district two tributes had already reached the stage. Cato and Clove.

"A son of Mars, definitely" Jason said of the boy.

As each chariot arrived Annabeth took down the names. Tim Montley, a fisherman boy from four, Ginger Tyler, a fox-faced girl from district five, a daughter of Hermes. Thresh and Rue from eleven, and finally, Katniss and Peeta.

There were gasps and cheers as the district twelve chariot arrived. Even the watching gods found themselves astonished. Unlike past years where district twelve's tributes were dressed as coal miners or sent naked and dusted in coal dust, Katniss and Peeta wore all black suits with capes and headpieces that were engulf in flames. The pair appeared to be ablaze with fire, and the two of them raised their joined hands, earning an elated eruption from the crowd. Their faces were projected up onto the giant monitors. Katniss was actually smiling. That was rare for her, not a lot could get her to show any emotion at all. Apparently the boy was already having an effect on her.

"Katniss Everdeen" Percy whispered. "The girl who was on fire…just like in my dreams."

With all the tributes gathered before the stage, President Snow took to the podium. His arrival turned Percy's blood to ice. Snow, the current day Hitler. A man who had more blood on his hands than even his father, Hades, god of the dead. That made him Hitler's half-brother. They both shared a morbid fascination with pain, death and suffering, and could summon a legion of skeletal warriors to fight in their name. Percy would've incinerated him on the spot, Hades would see that as a challenge, and a war would break out amongst the gods. A war that would cause more damage than any human war ever could.

"Welcome, welcome, one and all, and happy Hunger games!" Snow boomed in a poisonously cheerful voice. The white of his beard made him seem like Santa Clause, while his gaunt face and bony features made him seem more like Jack Skellington. Snow continued. "Tributes, I applaud your courage and conviction. Good luck, and may the odds be ever in your favor." Percy had had enough.

He stood up.

"I'm done with this. I think it' about time we went to talk to your brother Haymitch, Annabeth. See if he'll let us help. We can go wait in his room, bribe with some Olympian wine and maybe he'll talk to us." He turned to his ghostly friends. "Thanks for coming you guys. We really appreciate the help."

"No problem" said Jason. "We took down the giants, taking down a dystopian hell-scape should be a piece of cake."

"My pleasure" said Zoe.

"Of course," said Phillip. "Before you go Percy, I have to ask…may I talk to her, to Katniss?" his eyes fell to the floor.

Percy had been expecting him to ask that. He'd considered doing it earlier, showing Katniss her father's spirit to gain her trust so he could offer council further down the line. Now however, with the games just two weeks away, doing so was much riskier.

"After the games, I promise. Going to her now would only upset her, and she needs to be focused if she's going to win. Phillip nodded.

"I understand," there was sadness in his voice, but it was understanding silence. "Good luck with Haymitch. He's a stubborn man, that one. And better at holding his liquor than Dionysus himself. Goodbye, my friend." With that, and some friendly waves, the ghosts faded away and returned to their place in the underworld.

"Shall we?" Percy asked, offering Annabeth his arm. She took it, giggling.

"Certainly, Mr. Jackson." Percy grinned as they left the balcony. Despite the situation, this was still awesome. He felt like he was in a James Bond movie, infiltrating the enemy's base. Well, like in a James Bond movie, this enemy base would go up in flames before the end.


	3. An Agreement

When he'd walked to his Capitol provided suite, Haymnitch Abbernanthy had expected to step inside, open a fresh bottle of wine, and drink himself into the ground. He'd done this after every opening ceremony for the Games. It was a feeble attempt to wash from his mind the two teenage tributes he annually failed to save, to wash their faces away in a flood of alcohol, spittle and tears.

He'd hadn't ever succeeded. Every year the same thing would happen. He would wake up the next morning with a splitting headache, and his new charges face's forever etched into the back of his mind. The alcohol never made him forget. That didn't mean he was about to stop trying. Whispers of rebellion plans tickled at the back of his mind. Other victors had tried to get him involved for years, to help them organize and plan to overthrow the government that chained them.

Years ago he'd of followed them without hesitation, eager to fight back. Now his spirit was crushed, and he was grounded in realism. No rebellion would ever work. All attempts to fight back had been obliterated. And all future ones would be as well.

What he hadn't expected was to find his door already ajar, propped open with a shimmering green wine bottle. Arching a brow, Haymitch picked it up. The label was in Greek, which he understood at once. His mind was programmed that way.

"Wine God's Revelry" it translated to English. Beneath the label an Omega symbol was stamped in silver type. It was his favorite drink. From the wine cellar of Dionysus himself. Sighing, Haymitch rubbed his temples furiously. He hadn't been expecting a visit from his mother any time soon. She hadn't shown herself in front of him for ten years. They'd had a shouting match, like they usually did when she came around.

Well, he had shouted anyway. His mother, being the picture perfect wisdom goddess that she was, had sat their calmly, face coolly collected as he bellowed his hatred of her and the other gods right in her face. The gods deserved all the hatred they could get. Even she couldn't deny that.

"The gods do not support these games, son, or the dilapidated state of society" she'd told him in a level voice, the beginning of the same speech she always gave him. The gray eyes she'd passed to him bored into his skull, as if they were trying to influence his mind directly. "But it is forbidden for gods to interfere directly in the affairs of mortals. The shifting of human history must be left to human choices, and to the fates. We immortals can nudge you in the right direction, push the situation back and forth, but we cannot interfere. Leave fate to fate, Haymitch. Find what happiness you can in this world. Things will right themselves eventually. Just as they always do."

With that she always left him, with a kiss on the forehead and a simple goodbye.

The speech did nothing to alleviate his rage. It never did. Her words were a poor excuse at best for the god's lack of action. They could push things in the right direction, could they? Well, no gods he knew had ever tried. Most of the gods kept to themselves in Olympus, reveling in their power and riches while the mortals below them suffered. No, Athena's apolgies and explinations would never sway him. She wasn't his mother. She was an immortal hag, just as deserving of hatred as any of her fellows.

Thankfully he'd trained himself to tune her speech out over the years. He could sit there, let the words wash over him, and get back to drinking like he'd intended. Firming his grip on the bottle, Haymitch took a quick step forward and kicked the door open.

"Trying to bribe yourself into my good graces again, mo-" he began, stopping midsentence at the sight of the couple sitting by the window.

They looked up at his arrival. One of them, a man with a shaggy black mane and eyes green like the sea, held up another bottle of Revelry. A tiny smile crossed his lips.

"Care for a drink, Haymitch?" he called cheerfully. "Old man D says it's your favorite. Vintage, two-thousand fourteen. A good year for wine, he says. Would you mind talking to us for a minute?"

His companion, a woman with golden blonde curls that fell past her shoulders and stormy gray eyes that dubbed her Haymitch's half-sister, nodded her agreement. She held a small leather book, and flexed it nervously in her fingers.

"Please, Mr. Abbernanthy. We'd like to help."

Haymitch stared at them. Though he'd never met them before, he knew they were gods. He could tell. They gave off auras of powerful energy that crackled and sparked invisibly in the air around them. For some reason, gods had come to visit him of all people.

Kicking the door shut behind him, the drunken victor uncorked his bottle and took a long draft. A cavalcade of sweet and spicy tastes exploded on the tongue. Every bit as good as nectar, without the risk of burning you up.

"What do you want?" he snapped angrily, eyes narrowing. He turned to the blonde goddess. "Did our mother send you here?"

"No" she said honestly. "We came of our own accord, Haymitch. My name is Ann-"

"I know who you are" he cut her off harshly. "You're Annabeth, daughter of Athena and Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon, the dead half-bloods they made gods thirty years ago." He sneered, and his tone became thick and condescending. "Did you get bored of the heavens, come down to play with the little people? Well piss off, both of you. We've got no use for gods down here."

"Please, Haymitch" Percy said firmly. The fidgeting of his fingers gave away his nerves. Charismatic manipulations weren't his strong point. "We're here to help you." A long silence fell over the room.

A dark chuckle rose in Haymitch's throat. It came out as a spluttering cough, which he remedied with another swig of wine.

"Help?" he sneered. "Now why on earth would you want to do that? Thought gods weren't allowed to help us mortals. We have to do things for ourselves, don't we? And besides, even if gods could help, we all know they wouldn't. They don't give a flying fuck about us. They've made that perfectly clear." Another swig.

"We're different" said Percy. He and Annabeth exchanged a look. "We understand what you're feeling, Haymitch. We were mortals too, once. Yeah, gods aren't supposed to interfere, and we're really pushing the line just by talking to you, but we hate what this world's become just as much as you do."

"This year things are going to change" Annabeth picked up where he left off. "Your tributes stand a far greater chance than they did in the pa-"

"Those kids stand as much of a chance as they always do" Haymitch growled, wine flecking from his mouth as he spoke. "None! The District two boy's an Ares kid. A trained swordsman. District five girl's Hermes, and there's definitely others as well. District twelve doesn't stand a chance."

"Both your tributes are half-bloods this year" Percy told him. "A mixed blood and an Aphrodite boy."

"Yeah, what of it?" Haymitch barked, gulping down the last of the wine and chucking the bottle aside. He'd been able to guess that on the train. The air the kids had about them, the way their eyes moved, he knew at once they were demigods. "Their blood doesn't mean anything. They're just gonna lose and die just like all the others. Nothing's gonna change that…" he trailed off and walked to the dresser, from which he pulled a fresh bottle. He always had a steady supply ready.

"Katniss has a destiny, Haymitch" said Percy. He felt really awkward trying to talk like a god, with controlled, meaningful sentences that carried a sense of command, yet talking normally felt just as off. "The great prophecy is coming to pass, and she's at the center of it. Peeta too, though I'm not sure how much."

That was what stopped the victor dead in his tracks. He froze, and the new wine bottle slipped from his grip, shattering on the floor. Gods were something he didn't trust at all. Prophecy on the other hand was another story. Prophecies spoke with definitive truth. Once spoken, they would always come true, even if you did everything within your power to stop it. Sometimes trying to stop it was what caused it in the first place. Fate was coy little bastard like that. Unlike the words of a god, prophecies actually had weight to them. And when Haymitch was a child, he'd spent a decent amount of time with a harpy who'd memorized prophecies like they were the alphabet, spouting them at random in bits and pieces. He remembered all of them, he had a very good memory, especially for things like that. Though the pieces he knew were scattered, collected from a number of prophecies, including the great one, loosely collected in the mind of a harpy.

"_A maiden born of sun and shrub."_

"_The Healer cracks a heart of stone, an instinct forged into his bone." _

"_Wed in chains, the maiden is bound. In the fires of rebellion, a new resolve is found."_

"_A game of gods rages across every plane. Beasts, fanged and clawed rise to torment the sane."_

"_A babe born of battle, destined to lead. The future of a people so newly freed."_

"_A single arrow seals a tyrants fall. And in the end, His love will conquer all." _

These and others echoed across the landscape of his mind. There was a time in his life when he'd spent the majority of his time pouring over old Greek and Roman tomes, searching for anything that might have helped him discern the prophecy's meaning. He'd researched past great prophecies, The Cursed Blade, The Seven and the Doors of Death. They'd been interesting enough stories, tales of demigod heroes who'd journeyed across the North American continent to battle the titans, the unifying of the Greek and Roman demigods to battle the giants, but they hadn't provided him with any sort of cipher or "this is what the vague prophetic words mean, do this, save world" instructions. Yes, these half-bloods turned gods had definitely piqued his interests. If the great prophecy was truly coming true, then perhaps the foolish rebellion dreams of his youth would turn out to be worthwhile after all.

Looking up from the shattered wine bottle, Haymitch narrowed his eyes critically.

"Is it now? How, exactly? What parts do they play in the prophecy?" he'd spent years thinking these things out. He knew the right questions to ask.

"She's the maiden" Annabeth answered. "That we know for certain. Peeta…were not sure what lines refer to him, but he is involved. Percy's seen him in his dreams, with Katniss, and fire. Lots and lots of fire." A smirking tug pulled at Haymitch's lips. The fires of rebellion. That was exactly what he wanted to hear. The dreams of gods were thrice as volatile as a half-bloods. They showed flashes of the future, of what was to come. "With everything else we can only wait and see what happens. But if her destiny indicates anything, it's that Katniss gets out of the Games alive."

"And Peeta will…do something" Percy finished, rather ineloquently, Haymitch noticed. Apparently they didn't give speech classes to initiate gods. Oh well. "Either before or during the games. But that doesn't matter right now. What matters now it whether or not we'll let us help you. We can't do a lot, there are rules against that, but we can help. If you'll let us." There was a sense of pleading in his gaze Haymitch had never thought to see from a God. Though he'd deny it if you asked, he felt a flash of empathy for the god of heroes. Those eyes weren't the eyes of a god drunk with power. Those were the eyes of a man, desperate to help his race.

"What can you do?" he asked.

Annabeth produced a small glass bottle and set it on the bedside table.

"That's a bottle of nectar. Peeta and Katniss don't know they're half-bloods. We'll have to tell her eventually, but the nectar will still work. Slip it to them in a sponsor parachute. In small doses, unless it's medicine your sending. Snow will know something is up when a bowl of soup somehow helps them regenerate muscle or skin." Haymitch nodded. A plan spoken like a true child of Athena. Approached from all sides, with room left in case of setbacks. Very wise indeed.

From behind his chair Percy pulled a silver bow, simply crafted, but well-made looking.

"This is a bow Apollo made himself. He's Katniss' grandfather. He asked that I get it to her….he wants to help, in his own way at least. Slip this into the cornucopia with the rest of the equipment. I didn't bring any arrows. Celestial bronze and Imperial gold will be mostly useless, so she'll have to use the Capitol's ammunition." He tossed the bow onto the bed, which the Avox servants had made fresh with pure white sheets. Percy continued, that same look of heroic conviction shining in those green irises. "During the games I'll be following her. Invisible. Just to see if there are any loopholes I can take advantage of to help her." He exchanged another look with his wife. "We're commited to this a hundred percent, Haymitch. We want you to know that. Your help is invaluable to us. You're a smart man, and I know if anyone can get that girl through the Games, it's you. We'll check back in with you after the Gamemaker evaluations, alright?" Haymitch waved him off.

"Yeah, yeah…I get it. Check in when you want. Now get out. And leave the Revelry. It needs drinking."

Wearing hopeful smiles, the godly couple disappeared with a loud pop.

Snatching up the green bottle, Haymitch slumped back on his bed and took a long draft. Dear gods he was tired.

Already he'd gained a grudging respect for these gods. They were unlike their counterparts, that was for certain. They demonstrated a genuine concern for the state of the world, which was wonderful. But that didn't mean he wanted to listen to them heap praise on him or blather on about nothing. A plan had already begun to form in his mind. A way to get the girl all the sponsorship she needed to survive. She would hate it, but she'd probably end up taking it out on the baker boy. Haymitch could live with that. For the first time in ages genuine hope kindled in the aged victors heart. The great prophecy was coming true. Maybe there was hope for the world after all. Maybe things could finally change.

**The first three chapters have been WAY shorted than my chapters usually are, and for that I apologize. These first three have just sort of been setting the stage for the rest of the story, and kind of had to stand on their own to frame the narrative right. I promise, the next chapters are going to be at least five to seven thousand words a piece. Promise. Depending on the response, I may update this tomorrow or the next day, assuming I can squeeze in updating my other story. Happy reading! Please Review!**


	4. Quiet Mentoring

**Sorry this took so long guys, I really am. Life has been really hectic lately. Since I'm a senior I've had a ton of end of year projects to do, tests to study for, finals to ignore, and a prom date to get ready for, as well as another story on this site I'm also working on. Hope this one's long enough, the next one will come much, much sooner, Promise. Happy Reading, and please review! Your feedback keeps me motivated!**

It was with grim determination that Prim managed to drag herself out of bed that morning to milk Lady before school. The tin pail felt heavy as lead in her hand. Each step was a marathon ran down an endless track to nowhere. Her cheeks were puffed and stained red from crying.

The previous night was a blur of sobs, tears, and misery in the back of Prim's mind. Her mother had cried as well. Odd as it may sound, Prim thought that was a good sign. When her father had died she'd hardly cried at all, and that was towards the end of her mourning period. No, instead of crying she'd simply shut down completely. Become a soulless husk simply taking up space in their home, and left her daughters to fend for themselves.

Katniss had never forgiven her for that. Not completely. Even after being reaped. She'd taken her mother in hand, and with harsh eyes and harsh words had demanded that she keep herself together.

'You can't leave again' the words echoed in Prim's mind. A tear formed in her soft blew eyes, falling from the tip of her nose into the milk pale. Thinking her sister brought nothing but tears. Tears, and a horrible sense of guilt and responsibility.

It was her fault, Prim knew. Katniss had stepped up to take her place in the Games. Sacrificed herself in order to save her little sister. And for that, Prim hated herself beyond all comprehension. More tears leaked unhalted down her cheeks. Katniss was going into the arena as the tribute of Panem's poorest district, pitted against the vicious careers trained from a young age to fight and kill without prejudice, and it was all her fault.

Prim knew it was her fault. She could blame no one but herself. So overwhelming was her grief that the voice of reason that sounded in the back of her mind, saying reassuring things like 'it's not your fault,' and 'your name was only in once. How could anyone have known?' was silenced at once.

Mind a haze of miserable guilt, the twelve year old blonde found herself walking through the gravel strewn streets of the Seam, her pail forgotten beside the door to her home. Despite the early hour the place was already a buzz of activity. Coal miners walked in long lines towards the mines with their equipment thrown over one shoulder. A few minutes into the walk Buttercup jumped out of the bushes to join her, a mouse's tail hanging from his mouth. He'd gone out the previous night to hunt for food. Apparently he'd been successful. This wasn't surprising, seeing as there were plenty of rodents about to feed a hungry feline.

Together the pair walked down the town's quiet streets. Shop windows were slowly coming to life with activity. Owners pulling back curtains, setting up displays and putting out open signs. To them the nightmare was already over, Prim couldn't help but think. Yes, just like every year they'd be forced to the town square to watch two familiar teenagers get slaughtered on national television. But, just like every year, they would watch, give the tribute's families their confolensces, and move on. their children were safe until next year. To them, the world would go on.

Prim's gaze moved to the bakery across the street. A thin plume of smoke puffed from the chimney, expertly frosted cakes lined the windows, and the scents of baking bread permeated from the building. The baker's family were they only ones who could possibly know how she felt. They too were losing a family member to the viciousness of the Capitol. Prim felt a wave of sympathy wash over her. Though she'd only spoken to Peeta Mellark a handful of times, buying the rare loaf of bread her family could afford, she thought she knew him fairly well. She saw the way he stared at her sister as they walked buy, eyes shining with deep, sincere emotions, and she could here the truth in his stammering voice when she'd asked about the staring.

He loved her, Prim knew.

That fact alone nearly destroyed his chances of surviving to the end of the games. He loved a fellow tribute. And when Peeta Melalrk loved someone, like his father before him, he loved with everything that he was. He wore his heart on his sleeve for all but the subject of his affection to see. In the arena he would do all that he could to make sure Katniss got out alive. He would put himself second, willing to die so that someone else would live.

And that broke Prim's heart.

It filled her with just the tiniest sliver of hope for her sister's chances, but she felt sympathetic beyond words for the baker's son. Katniss had no idea how he felt. There was no chance of his actions being rewarded. Yet he would still fight for her. Another wave of tears trickled down the youngest Everdeen's face. This time for the boy who she thought might have been just what her sister needed, a loving influence to calm the fiery rage that filled her heart.

Buttercup nibbled at her finger. No doubt he was hoping for a scrap of meat or a saucer of goat's milk to top off his recent meal. Prim giggled a little. A tiny, shaky giggle that sent trembling down her spine. Oh how she envied her pet today. He didn't understand what was going on, and could live like nothing had happened at all. Kneeling she took the cat into her arms.

Turning on her heel she'd intended to move back towards the Seam, but was stopped by a familiar call from behind.

"Prim!"

She turned to see Gale Hawthorne exit the bakery with a half filled game bag hanging from one arm. Dark bags hung under his eyes. It was obvious he hadn't slept a wink the night before. His eyes were bloodshot, and there was a sort of tremor to his posture. Unless you looked close you wouldn't notice that his arms, muscled like olive skinned tree branches, were shaking.

"Gale!" the girl breathed in relief, wrapping her tiny arms around him in a hug. After the reaping yesterday he'd disappeared into the forest and hadn't returned even when it grew dark. He'd been hunting, that much was obvious from the bits of twig and leaves that still clung to his hair. "Thank goodness. You had us worried."

That was perhaps the understatement of the year. Hazel had been petrified that her son had ran off and done something rash. Like attack the nearest peacekeeper for example. His anti-captiol views were hardly a secret among the people of the Seam. Even though he didn't speak them much aloud, his body language more than illustrated his loathing of the government.

Prim had worried about him almost as much. During the years since he and Katniss had started hunting together, he and the Hawthornes had become something of a second family to her. Gale was like her older brother. He certainly treated her like a younger sister. Like he did Posy, only lacking the overly sweetened baby-talk that befit toddlers.

Gale smiled. It was a forced, unnatural curve of his lips that required a great deal of effort.

"I'm fine" he said. "I can take care of myself out there. You know that." He paused, staring off into space in a pained, almost longing way. Abruptly he moved a hand to his game bag. "The fence'll be turned on during the games, what with the electricity hooked up for the screen in the square, so I figured I'd get a head start stocking up on meat. Were gonna need it. I can only get so much myself without...without Catnip here..."

Again he trailed off, the gray of his irises melting into stony pools of despair. He loved Katniss too. Everyone knew that. It was obvious. To everyone except Katniss at least. Catnip was his pet name for her. One she'd only ever let him call her by. They were thick as thieves, those two. But, being the emotionally oblivious rock that she was, Katniss had only ever seen their relationship as platonic. Nothing more.

Gale's feelings were something that brought Prim an unprecedented amount of guilt. She knew how much he cared about her sister, his feelings were obvious. But she couldn't help but feel that he wouldn't be good for Katniss as anything more than a brotherly friend.

Leaning forward she peeked into the game back. A large turkey took up most of the space, it's legs tied and it's feathers rumpled from confinement. Bits of brown hair covered the other side of the interior. He'd taken at least three squirrels that morning. That was good. The baker was rather fond of them, and traded piping hot bread for every perfectly skewered squirrel he recieved.

The last item in the bag was a lumpy brown bag steaming with the heat of the bread within. It was much bigger than usual, containing at least five whole loaves.

"You must've had a lot a squirrel to trade" Prim said, trying to make idle conversion. She didn't fail entirely in that respect, but the usual cheeriness was gone from her voice. There was no cheeriness to be found today.

Gale nodded, snapping out of his daze.

"He gave me extra. Said it was for you, to make sure you're eating with Katniss gone." His voice was hollow. Prim jerked up from the bag to meet his eyes. The baker was sending extra food for her? Why would he help to feed the siblling of the girl who was to fight his son in the arena? Who may very well be the cause of his death?

"Why?" she squeaked. Part of her wanted to send it back. Katniss would've wanted to send it back to. She hated the idea of charity. Taking charity would mean that you owed someone something, and owing a debt was as good as a noose secured around your neck. Gale shrugged.

"Don't know...Don't question it too much though, Prim." This comment only confused her more. That didn't sound like Gale at all. Thankfully, his next words clarified his meaning. "You and your mom need the food, Prim. Take what you can get. Katniss may not like charity, but if it means keeping you two alive, she'll make an exception."

Prim nodded. That sounded more like Gale. Willful determination in the face of hopeless despair.

"I'll drop the bread off with your mom, okay?" Gale said as he fastened the bag shut. Already his mind had started to drift back to it's own little limbo, populated only by thoughts of Katniss, and his fear of losing her. That funk would clear up in time. By mid afternoon he would be his old self, with his emotions tucked securely into the back of his mind where they wouldn't bubble to the surface and bring untold misery to his psyche. "I have to drop the turkey off with mom. She'll want to get started preserving this meat. It'll have to last as long as the games do."

Kneeling down to her level he pulled her into another tight, brotherly hug.

"Be strong, Prim" he told her quietly. "Katniss needs you to be strong for her. Can you do that?" Prim nodded without hesitation. She would do anything for her sister. Even if that meant swallowing her own fear in order to survive the coming weeks. Even if it meant never seeing Katniss again.

She pressed a kiss to Gale's cheek.

"Thank you, Gale" she whispered.

With one last squeeze, he stood back up and walked off down the street towards the Seam. For some reason Prim found herself standing there scratching Buttercup under the chin. A few moments later, after Gale had disappeared completely around the corner, she got to her feet and started walking. She had to get home and get ready for school. School sounded even less appealing than usual, what with her heart feeling like a ball of semisolid lead in her chest, dragging her down.

A warm summer breeze picked up as she walked. It blew fallen leaves across the muddy dirt street, tumbling them in a cascade of all the shades of green imaginable. Though life their could be harsh, Disctrict twelve did have some beauty to it. It was surrounded by perhaps one of the last truly wild forests in the country, the rest of them either cleared away for Games arenas or chopped down for lumber. Prim liked the woods, no matter what Katniss said.

No, surviving there was in no way her forte, but there was a strange serenity about the trees. The various herbs and plants that dotted the ground and plastered the sides of trees trunks, with the power to heal sealed within. Those sang to her in a way she never quite understood. Healing was her calling. She knew that even at such a young age. She would've been a doctor if she could, but that was beyond impossible. No true medical schools existed outside the capitol, and the majority of groundbreaking medical technology was kept hidden away from the districts. The capitol couldn't have them becoming self reliant.

As she walked Prim made a mental note to ask Gale to gather more herbs the next time he was out. With the fence active, she and her mother wouldn't be able to gather the necessary cures for common illnesses or cuts. That would be disastrous. She made a special effort to keep her mind on herbs and away from Katniss. Maybe that would help her grief.

When she was only about twenty yards away from home, she was stopped a second time.

"That was an awfully brave thing your sister did" said a raspy voice. Prim turned ninety degrees to see a wizzened old man huddled against the wall of a delapidated shack with holes in the roof and no glass in the windows. A snow white beard curled from his chin, and a decaying gray robe was wrapped around his thin frame. What Prim noticed about him though were his eyes. They were a brilliant, sparkling green. He held a gnarled looking cane, and his skin was wrinkled as an old piece of leather. But his smile was kind, sad and honest. She recognized him. He was an old beggar who sat by the street in town. He continued. "It reminded me of a man I once knew. He gave his life for his friends, and for that he was never forgotten. My condolences, Miss Everdeen."

"Thank you" she replied. She meant it, but she was unsure of what else to say. His smile grew a little wider.

"You're very welcome, my dear. Many would look on your sister's actions as foolish, but I'm a very old man, and I know a hero when I see one. She's going to win these games, you know. It's written in the stars themselves. Here, take this" he reached into his pocket and withdrew a large coin. He placed it in Prim's hand and closer her fingers around it. She gasped. It was gold, not the gray copper and tin that currency was usually made from. Not only was it gold, but it was nearly the size of her fist. Unfamiliar characters were etched around the edges, and a person's head, crowned in laurel leaves, was drawn on one side. Reeling in shock, she looked back up to find him grinning toothily.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"A friend" the old man answered simply. "Think of that coin as a gift. It should fetch a fair price down at the hob. It's not often they get any gold there, let alone gold pure as a dramcha's." Leaning heavily on his cane, he reached out a withered hand and squeezed her shoulder. "As I said before my dear, your sister will return home alive. Certain parties are making sure of that. Have no fear, Katniss Everdeen has far too great a fate to die a victim of the capitol's Games. I can promise you that." Giving one last kind smile, the old man turned and hobbled away, cane trembling under the weight of his all but skeletal form.

"Wait!" Prim called, shoving the coin in her pocket. With a few quick steps she'd caught up to him. "Who are you?" she asked again. "Why are you helping me? What...what are you talking about?" Her face was bewildered. Understandable, seeing as matters of fate and mysticism hardly ever came up in District twelve.

"As I said, I'm a friend." He flashed another smile, drumming his finger down the length of his cane. "You and your sister are a very special kind of people. Music flows in your blood, archery comes as second nature to your sister, and healing is your calling. Did you think that was all coincidence? Those talents have to come from somewhere. Destiny has a lot in store for your sister, for you as well, I'd wager. After all, she loves you more than anything else in the world. She's fighting in that arena for your sake. And some of the people in charge of things are trying to set the odds in her favor. The world will need her, soon." Again he turned to go, but as he did so he looked back over his shoulder and said. "If you're curious to know more, perhaps you want to help, then go to the forest with the hunter boy the next time he goes. A very old friend of mine will tell you more."

Then, without another word, the green eyed old man hobbled away. Prim stood there for a quite a while afterwards, not knowing what to do. She blinked. Buttercup grew fussy in her arms and wriggled himself free.

What had just happened? Who was that old beggar? Tentatively she reached into her pocket and withdrew the heavy gold coin, weighing it in her hands. Should she do as he said and go to the forest? Or should she dismiss the whole encounter as the meaningless ramblings of a senile old man?

* * *

><p>Katniss hadn't been sure what to expect of the Games training facility. Bits and pieces of it had been shown in the television coverage of the Games, snip-its of the tributes training with weapons or running obstacle courses. All of these were present, with various training stations set in intervals around the room. Capitol instructors stood at each of them, ready to teach the Game's participants in the ways of battle, knowing fully well that twenty-three of their pupils would die very very soon. Along the walls the Gamemakers sat in chairs with clipboards, whispering behind their hands as they observed this years selections. These Katniss had been prepared for.<p>

What she hadn't been fully prepared for, though Haymitch had warned her at breakfast, was the room's atmosphere. It wasn't anything like other gatherings of young people such as school. A tense aura hung about the place. Heated stares shot back and forth between tributes. Fists tightened, knuckles cracked, and slowly the twenty-four condemned adolescents began to break off in different directions. Some gathered in groups. These were the beginnings of alliances that would determine the flow of the games. A large crowd gathered around the boy from two, Cato, as he demonstrated his affinity with a sword for the cameras, hacking a practice dummy to bits wicker and foam. The groups that formed were not of friends, but of temporary allies. Even between them the tension was sharp as a knife.

Others went off by themselves. Thresh, the enormous dark skinned boy from Eleven took to the corner punching bag and unloaded a flurry of powerful blows. Each time his fist impacted the bag it let off a loud cannon-like slap that turned heads from all over the room. His little girl counterpart, Rue, took to the climbing courses as eager as a monkey. She climbed with incredible speed, topping a twenty foot structure in a matter of seconds. With her small form and lithe movements, she'd be one to watch during the games. It wouldn't be the first time when the small unassuming kid had surprised them all and emerged the victor.

The girl from two threw knives at a series of targets along the north wall. The girl from one talked to people, flirting her way into the ranks of the career alliance. Others picked up weapons, completely unfamiliar with them, and tried to master their use as fast as humanly possible. If they didn't know how to fight they'd be slaughtered in the bloodbath at the cornucopia.

Following Haymitch's orders Katniss stayed away from the bows and arrows, temping as their flawless craftsmanship was. She needed to hide her talent for when it mattered. To let her marksmanship be her unexpected trump card to pull on her opponents when she needed it most in the heat of combat. Showing off now would only tell them what to expect.

Instead she'd opted to try out the survival stations. Fire starting, plant identifying, building a shelter, these all came easily to her. Two hours into the session she'd moved to the camouflage station. Peeta was busy painting his arm the color of bark, detailing tiny creeping vines crawling their way up the bark's surface. That was something else she hadn't expected. Peeta. Since the opening ceremony the previous evening he'd been with her almost constantly. She supposed he was trying to continue the team work strategy he'd started with holding her hand. that was well enough. Even Haymitch had said that was a good idea. Sponsors would be drawn to the idea of two tributes united in the name of their district.

Good strategy or not, she still didn't like it. The blonde boy's very presence unnerved her. It made her feel weak, exposed, and vulnerable. Memories of that night in the rain flashed through her mind. That night with the rain and the burnt bread had been her hour of desperation. She'd been on the brink of starving, and of giving up entirely. Then Peeta had tossed her a lifeline. He had saved her life, her families lives, and she hated him for it. She owed him. Debt wasn't something good going into the arena. What bewildered her more than his presence was his attitude.

For one thing he was always smiling at her. Whenever their gazes crossed his baby blue eyes would light up, and his expression would break into a smile. She'd asked what was wrong, to which he'd replied 'nothing' before scratching the back of his head uncomfortably.

Looking away from him she carefully brushed moss green paint over her left forearm. The shading was right, but the consistency was off a bit. Using her brush she thickened the paint's coat. She looked over her words with critical eyes. There, that was perfect. Onlya very careful eyes would be able to tell her skin apart from moss growing on the side of a log.

"Good job" Peeta praised off to the side. Katniss glanced over at his own work, which had started to include some of the finer details. Crawler vines creeped along his arm like green veins. The bark had a gritted texture to it, using lumps of hardened pain to create the little knobs that peppered a tree trunk's surface. In comparison to Katniss' work, it was a masterpiece. Apparently frosting cakes wouldn't be as useless in the arena as people thought.

"Thanks" she said back neurtrally.

He looked at her expectantly, as if expecting her to say something else and carry on the casual conversation. When she didn't, he turned back to his work and started painting flower blossoms opening at his fingertips. Coversation wasn't something Katniss was really any good at. She'd never been a talkitive person, and the only person she'd ever felt really 'talking' to was Gale, and he was hundred of miles away in the woods where they both belonged.

She reached for another brush, intending to try her hand at drawing a stretch of ivy across her legs, when a heavy finger tapped her shoulder. Instinct taking over, she spun to find Thresh standing behind her. With a blank face he pointed towards the far eastern wall at a Gamemaker women sitting beside an empty chair, peering down at a clipboard.

"You're next" Thresh told her before moving off towards the work out equipment. Katniss' brows knitted themselves together cautiously. Tributes had been moving back and forth between her all morning, sitting across from her while she talked and occasionaly scribbled something down on her board.

"Who is that?" she asked Peeta, pointing at the women. He looked.

"Psychologist, I think" he said as he added a slash of red to his rose blossom. "Haymitch mentioned they'd had have down here. Guess she's talking to each of us, profiling us. Guess you're next. Good luck."

"Thanks" she replied tensely. At once she began schooling her face to complete indiffence. She couldn't let herself look weak in front of the Gamemakers. Their scores would help to determine her sponsors, and her sponsors could end up saving her life in the arena. Using a nearby rag she cleaned off her forearm before standing up and heading towards the woman. Each step she took with precise care. Not too fast. Not too slow. She musn't appear nervous.

"Good morning" the woman greeted as Katniss took her seat. Like all the other capitol residents Katniss had met she was dressed in a mosaic of different bright colors. Her hair was done in great loops that hung down past her knees, and her eyelashes were flared upward. A pair of reading glasses was perched on her nose, magnifying serene gray eyes that pierced and analysed everything they saw. They seemed familiar to Katniss, though she couldn't say why.

"Hello" she intoned quietly. No emotion showed in her voice. Perfect.

"I'm Belle Minerva, the Games psychiastrist, and I'd like to ask you a few questions. Is that alright?" Katniss stared. Was it alright? She had a choice? Since arriving here there had been no choices, only things she was required to do. Smile for the cameras, wince under the hands of the sylist, and let the avoxes serve her as if it were nothing. Belle Minerva apparently saw her confusion, because she explained herself.

"We're sending you all into the arena to die, anyway, my dear." She said this almost mournfully, fiddling wither her hands and tugging at her hair loops. "I'm not going to force you to do anything. My colleagues," she gestured to the other Gamemakers who were gathered around a table full to bursting with food. "But I see no reason to force my questions on you when we've already been forced here to do something no one should ever have to. Now, I only have one question for you dear. Would you mind answering it?"

For reasons Katniss would never know, she nodded. Something about this woman compelled her to trust her, and that scared her greatly. Trust could get you killed very easily.

Readying her pen, Belle Minerva asked her question.

"Why are you here?" A long silence followed. Why was she here? Well, that was obvious, because the capitol had dragged her hear as a sacrifice of course. But Katniss could tell that wasn't what the question had been asking. She thought about it for a long moment, before the answer occured to her, clear as crystal, obvious as could be.

"My sister" she said. "I'm here for my sister." The capitol woman smiled.

"You're a very brave girl, Miss Everdeen." She wrote something illegible on her clipboard. "Yes, I think you'll do very well. Very well indeed." Her gaze softened, and in a gravely serious voice she said. "Not everyone in the capitol thirsts for your blood quite as thirstily as the viewers do, Katniss. There are those in high places who'd like to help you. The question is, will you let them? I'll be watching you my dear, good luck."

Katniss could only stare as the woman rose from the chair and departed. Pure, unadulterated bafflement showed on her face. What the hell was that? Suspicion and caution bubbled back to the forefront of her mind. It was just another capitol game. A trick to lull her into a false sense of security. That was it. As she made her way back to the camouflage station, Katniss decided she'd be watching the Gamemakers just as they watched her.

They were up to something, and that could mean nothing good.


	5. The Dream

That night Prim had a dream, one unlike any she'd ever had before. Usually her dreams were full of bright colors, cheerful friends and furry animals to cuddle and nurse to the peak of health. This dream was different. It took place in the forest, a place where unless she was gathering herbs, Prim tried to avoid. The woods were a dark and frightening place full of creeping shadows and malicious beasts. Nowhere she'd ever go willingly.

Like with many of her dreams her father was present. But it wasn't a dream of tearful reunions with her family or of happier times long past. Her father stood in a forest clearing, a stretch of blank earth surrounded by a ring of tall oaks and pines. He was dressed in his hunting jacket and boots, and he held the bow he'd spent months meticulously shaping out of wood. He wasn't alone.

Another man stood a few paces off. His face bore an uncanny resemblance to Prim's father's, though his other features were completely alien. A mane of bright blonde hair cascaded down his shoulders, and the bow he carried was of purest gold. Shimmering lights seemed to dance around his form, like sunbeams caught in a whirlwind that twirled and spinned in a merry sonata. In his other hand he carried a beautiful instrument stringed in gold, it's surface lacquered to a flawless shine.

Glancing once and each other, the two men began their long trek through the forest. They exited the clearing, and walls of closely growing tree trunks formed a narrow dirt path into the forest's depths. As one the two opened their mouths and began to sing. Birds stopped their chirping, squirrels stopped their chattering, and even the wind itself seemed to stop and listen to the song.

Perfectly harmonized notes wove together and drifted upwards through the trees. Their words were in a strange, foreign language, but their meaning was made clear by the rhythm, by the soul of the music. Emotions both joyous and sorrowful eminated from the sounds, emotions so moving that even nature itself was quivering around it. sunlight broke through the canopy, illuminating the singers' faces.

Watching from somewhere above, from outside of the dream, Prim felt her heart melt. Her father's voice had been renowned as the greatest in the district. So beautiful were his songs that even the birds stopped to listen. It was the voice that had charmed Prim's mother, and now, even in dreams, it brought the youngest Everdeen a flood of memories both euphoric and mournful.

In the same instant the two men ended the song. The blonde with the instrument turned Phillip Everdeen, and pressed his golden bow into his hands.

He spoke a few more words in that strange language and pressed his lips to Phillip's forehead.

"To you I offer this, my son. Let your aim be ever true, and your descendants blessed."

And then the dream shifted.

A young man of about twenty kenlt on a feautureless plane of swirling blackness. Great metal chains bound his arms to the floor. Golden blood flowed in rivulets down his bared chest, freshly inflicted wounds glistening dangerously. Sweat drenched his handsome face, matting his messy black mane. His eyes were green as the sea, piercing and full of power.

Another man dressed in a business suit of the capitol materialized before him. His features were blurred and distorted as if only half there. Yet a malicious grin was still clear on his face. A grin, and his eyes, black pools nothingness. Their gaze alone would be enough to kill a weaker man. Out of the swirling void around them a shadowy dagger formed in the man's hand.

Still grinning, he held it to chained man's throat. Veins pulsed anxiously beneath the blade's cold touch.

"You put your faith in a child, Perseus" the man drawled in a voice that crackled the air and sent terror shrieking down Prim's spine. It was a voice that lacked the sound of a threat. It wasn't a voice that meant to hurt, it was a voice meant to destroy and ruin. "The Fates may have deemed her noteworthy, but the Fates forget the simplest of truths." With a flick of the wrist he dragged the dagger along his captive's neck. Golden blood seeped from the wound, dripping down to pool at his knees. "In the end, god of heroes, there can be only Chaos."

Again the dream shifted.

Katniss stood alone on a barren field of ashes. She was naked apart from a simple necklace. A pearl hung from a leather cord around her neck, settling in the valley between her breasts. She wore a blank expression free of thought or feeling.

Storm clouds billowed gray in the sky above. Thunder boomed in the distance, lightning forked across the expanse, and the smell of oncoming rain hung heavily in the air.

Then Katniss began to walk. Each of her steps left a deep print on the field of ashes. Bits flaked like dust and drifted around her legs, staining her olive skin an ugly steaked gray. As she moved something in her expression began to change. Not anything overt like a smile or a lifted brow. Something subtler, the heat in her eyes and the deliberateness of her stride.

Slowly her pace grew faster and faster, until she was running at a dead sprint across the wasteland. Dust billowed in clouds behind her, rising like smoke. Her arms pumped back and forth as she ran. And then she ignited. Around her elbows and shoulders flames sparked into life. Sparks became hungry fire tongues streaming out behind Katniss like the tail of some magnificent elemental bird.

The tongues snaked their ways around the young woman's form, enveloping her in a fiery embrace that covered her from head to toe in oranges and yellows and red. Somehow the flaking ashes beneath her feet were caught up in the blaze, and sparks found new homes in the layered decay of previously burnt wood.

Before long towers of flame fifty feet high rage over the field of ashes. As if dancing the tongues licked and twirled round one another, wreathing the world in heat and smoke. They rippled and roared like waves on an orange sea, and at the center of it all stood Katniss.

She'd stopped running, and had come to rest at the center of the inferno. Flames clothed her form in shimmering light. The fire rolled over her skin and braided itself harmlessly in her hair. She was a goddess of flame. Katniss Everdeen, the girl on fire. Whatever little sunlight managed to pierced the stormy colored clouds was made dim by the flames. They were a star all their own, with the whole world revolving around and within them.

And then from beneath the flames the ashes rose into the air. For a moment they hung there motionless, a million tiny black specks dangling above the ground. Then, like a swarm of insects, they descended on Katniss, arranging themselves along her body. It took maybe a dozen layers, but when the ashes had done their work, the braid-wearing girl from the Seam was draped in a magnificent gown of blacks and whites and grays. From the way they were angled the ashes looked like feathers, transforming Katniss into an enormous humanoid bird.

A mockingjay. Whose beauty was surpassed only by her voice.

Tentatively, Katniss lifted one of her hands, staring at it almost quizzically. As she gazed at it a molten hot ring of flawless gold appeared around ring finger. Attached to it by a firm steel clasp was a thin silvery chain that disappeared into the swirling vortex of flames, binding her to something unseen.

A moment passed before the chain lost some of it's tension and a second figure stepped out of the fire and into view. It was Peeta Mellark. He wore a scarlet suit embroidered with orange at the sleeves and collar, giving his form the appearance of the surrounding flames. On his left hand he wore a similar golden ring, where the chain's other end was secured. Between the chains links a minuscule red thread was woven tightly, forming a second bond between the ring bearers. An eternal string old as fate itself.

Peeta smiled at the girl he loved, smile full of sincerity and genuine affection. His hair shimmered in the firelight. Katniss said nothing, her face stony and unreadable as ever. Unfazed by the fire, the baker boy stepped towards her. Before long they stood just a single pace away, eyes locked blue on gray. Their lips came together in a kiss. It was confusing gesture on both their parts. For the boy it was a true kiss, a sign of love. Yet for the girl it was nothing yet everything at the same time. Eons passed and their lips stayed locked.

Eventually the pairs' arms embraced the other's form. The kiss deepened and sparked in the form of new dancing flames colored green like the forest. Their shimmering auras mixed and mingled as a single entity. Two souls entwined and became as one.

Peeta's hand trailed down Katniss's neck, moving down the length of her arm and coming to rest on her stomach. There the slightest of bulges had appeared, stretching the fabric of her magnificent gown.

In a the flames disappeared along with Peeta. Among the flames a thousand shadowy images began to fade in and out of sight. Ghostly wisps of people, hardly there at all starting and stopping like clips of an old film. Dozens of capitol soldiers darted across a battlefield with assault rifles raised. Gunshots popped liked crackling corn over a fire. Shadowy combatants tore at one another with sticks and improvised weapons. Glowing figures clashed high above in the sky, and arrows streaked in all directions.

A shadowy version of Gale tumbled into view, grappling with a spiky haired girl in a torn silver vest. Gale's face was contorted with barely contained fury. His form was ghostly, like the others, but it left an afterimage everywhere it moved. A second man with blonde hair and blue eyes. Not Peeta's. These features were sharply carved and harsh. Peeta Mellark wasn't capable of that kind of rage. His heart was far too soft for it.

Around the struggling pair other silver clothed girls leaped and rolled over the battlefield, loosing arrows and flinging perfectly balanced hunting knives into their opponents' chests.

Just as suddenly as they'd appeared the figures disappeared in thick puffs of smoke. The swirling flames died in an instant, and Katniss was left floating in the void of space. Distant stars twinkled in the background. Comets trailed sparkling clouds of dust, and the entirety of creation turned in an endless cycle.

Katniss stepped forward in the void. There was no sound, and silence dominated the vast expanse of nothingness.

Floating before her was a glassy orb. Painted across it's surface were greens and blues and browns. Wispy clouds dotted it like fluffed cotton. Billions of tiny fires flickered into life around the orb. Tiny pinpricks, the fires that burned within every human soul.

The little glass earth floated down into Katniss's open palm. She held it up to her face wonderingly. Still her eyes were unreadable. Slowly her grip began to tighten, the orb cracking between her fingers, sending shards of glass spinning outward into space. Across the earth's surface the fires grew into a terrible blaze that devoured the healthy green land.

Suddenly the huntresses eyes closed. Her grip slackened, and she pressed her lips to the marred orb.

Prim tumbled out of bed in a tangle of limbs and bed linens. Cold sweat drenched her clothes. Her hands shook, and nightmarish confusion wracked her mind.

That had been a dream unlike any she'd had before. What did it mean, why was Katniss on fire? Who was the girl Gale had been fighting? Why had Peeta been there? And why had the man in chains had the same eyes as the old beggar man? Prim found no answers in the stillness of her tiny bedroom. Buttercup nuzzled sleepily against her side. Her mind grew only more confused.

_"If you're curious to know more, perhaps you want to help, then go to the forest with the hunter boy the next time he goes. A very old friend of mine will tell you more."_

What the old beggar had meant she didn't know, yet the words resonated clearly in her thoughts. The idea alone was crazy, and yet Prim found herself deciding to heed his advice. Her dreams had meaning. Some deep, important meaning. And she had to discover what that meaning was.

* * *

><p>Peeta felt the warm summer breeze tingle the hair on his forearms as it blew over him. He could hear the buzzing of the capitol around him, the whirring of hovercrafts and the chattering of people shattering the serenity of the rooftop garden. It had been surprising to learn the garden existed here of all places. Surely there were better places to plant an assortment of colorful flowers and trees. Needless to say, despite it's beauty the garden felt highly out of place.<p>

However it felt, Peeta couldn't deny that there was a sense of solitude to the place. In the floors below someone was always watching. Cameras suspended in the corner of every room. Avoxes who doubtlessly had monitoring devices hooked up to them. The several hundred capitol employees who bustled about the place non stop.

Here though, there was no one. At least no one noticeable. Here it was possible to get some semblance of peace and quiet. Which was why it was odd that Haymitch had told him to meet him up here. It had been in the form of a hastily scribbled note taped beneath his dinner plate reading 'Rooftop 8:00 tell no one'.

The drunken mentor's message alone was enough to tell Peeta that the garden must be a secure location to talk. Even drunk Haymitch wasn't someone stupid enough to say incriminating things so openly. What Haymitch had to say to him however, Peeta could only guess. Most likely it was something to do with the games. But if that were the case why wasn't Katniss there as well? Perhaps Haymitch had decided to focus on him, and saw him as the better tribute. Fat chance of that. Katniss was a thousand times more likely to win than he was without trying. With a bow in her hands she was an efficient killing machine. She always got squirrels right in the eye and damaged none of the meat. It would be the same with human targets.

Apart from her prowess as a hunter, she was lithe and quick minded. If it came to it she could probably outrun any who tried to pursue her in the arena. That, and even if Peeta were to get her at knife point, she still had him beat. He could never hurt her. Even if it meant his own death. Sometimes a loving heart was a heavy burden indeed. Yes, it gave you the strength and the courage to carry on. But at the same time it held you down like chains. It made you see someone else as more important then yourself. And in a game like the Hunger Games, self preservation was all that mattered. Eventually all alliances were broken and a single person was left victorious.

If Peeta could bet, he'd bet on Katniss, and not only because he loved her. Because she was the best of them. And, unlike him, she had people back home who needed her.

"You came, good" Haymitch's gruff voice called from across the garden, shattering the boy's train of thought. He peered over his shoulder to see the mentor approaching with a half bottle of liquor in his hand. Luscious golden liquid sloshed around the thick green glass as he walked. Whatever it was, it was strong. It's thick aroma overwhelmed the scents of the flowers, and Peeta couldn't help but cough. "Suck it up, boy" Haymitch said, taking a seat beside him. He took a generous swig of wine, smacking his lips in ecstasy. His cool gray eyes stared off into the city. Distant and full of thought.

"So..." Peeta began. He wasn't sure what to say. "You wanted to see me?"

"I did" Haymitch confirmed. His fingers drummed along the bottle's neck. "Want a drink?" he offered placidly. Peeta shook his head. The mentor shrugged. "Your loss. Good stuff, this." For another few moments he simply sat there in contemplation. The finer points of his plan were starting to manifest in his mind's eye. It could work. It wasn't likely, but it was possible.

"Now," haymitch said. "Tell me, how long have you been in love with the girl? Katniss."

A rosy pink blush rose in the baker boy's cheeks.

"How did you-"

"It's not a secret" the mentor cut him off. "It's obvious. I see the way you stare at her. The way you held her hand at the opening ceremony. Now answer the question. How long?"

Peeta's blush grew ever deeper. This was beyond embarrassing. His feelings were so obvious that even the town drunkard could tell? If that were the case, Katniss might even know herself. Though that wasn't likely. She hadn't slit his throat yet, so his secret must be safe for now. Breathing deeply, Peeta answered.

"Since we were five." Haymitch nodded. Pensively he pursed his lips.

"That long, eh? And you haven't even talked to her until the train?" Peeta shook his head. "Thought so. She doesn't know of course, if that's what's worrying you. That one's about as emotionally dead as they come. Trust me, I should know." Again he took a swig of wine. "I'm going to be blunt, boy. Only one of you is coming out there alive, and it sure as hell isn't gonna be you. You're too soft. You care too much. You'll hesitate in a fight, and you'll die. That being said, the girl actually stands a chance, but only if I can get her decent sponsors. Sponsor gifts are your lifeline in the games. A single decent gift can be the difference between winning and dying In case you didn't know, our district doesn't get too many sponsors. Not a lot of corporations wanna endorse a dirt poor coal mining town. But you, boy. You've given me an idea, one that may just get the girl everything she needs and more. These capitol folks are saps for a bit of romance. They live for it. And we can give them there newest obsession. The star crossed lovers of district twelve."

Peeta's eyes widened. He was starting to understand now. The plan was obvious. Obvious and brilliant. Yet the idea of it alone felt like thousand needles piercing his heart.

"You want us to fake it" he said, more explaining it to himself aloud than clarifying with Haymitch. "Convince the audience were in love to earn sponsors. Get them to root for us." Haymitch gave a satisfied nod.

"Exactly. They'll eat it up. There's never been a love story in the arena before. None of the other mentors we'll see it coming. Everyone else is focused on the singular strategy. Every tribute is ultimately fighting for themselves alone, but you'll be a different case. A case they won't expect."

With each word Peeta's foreboding grew. He wanted them to fake it? Faking it would involve confessing his feelings, sort of. Or at least pretending to confess. That was probably one of the last things he wanted to do. Firstly, it would most likely involve him getting his heart broken. And secondly, he would inevitably die in the arena, possibly as a direct result of his proceeding confessions. That'd be a lovely way to die, wouldn't it? Killed by your spurned lover's raging desire to survive.

"Do we tell Katniss?" he asked quietly.

"No" Haymitch answered sharply. "We need a proper reaction from her, and we won't get it if she knows beforehand. After training's done it'll be time for the interviews. Use yours to show your feelings. It won't be hard, Caesar usually asks about that sort of thing. I've seen the way you've handled your stylists. You're good with people. Public speaking shouldn't be a problem for you."

"You want me to confess on national television?" Peeta asked incredulously. The answer was clear, but still he asked.

"Of course, boy. We need the audience's support to get sponsors. You two have to sell yourselves as a couple. So there it is," he said, swallowing the final mouthful of wine. "There's the plan. You help to get the sponsors and keep the girl alive until the end, then you can die whatever sort of noble death it is you have planned for yourself. Will you help or not? Answer quickly. We have to go all the way with this if it's going to work. There can't be any hesitation."

It took all of a second for Peeta to decide.

"I'll do it" he said at once. The plan was a grim one that involved his own demise. But it just might save Katniss. Haymitch raised a brow curiously.

"That was quick of you to throw your life away. Doesn't part of you want to win, to ditch my plans and go for the gold? Haven't you got a family to get back to?" These were probing questions, Peeta could tell. Haymitch was testing his willingness to follow the plan. Testing to see if he'd chicken out and fight for himself. He shook his head.

"They don't need me. Yeah," he said at the mentor's odd look. "When I die they'll me miss me, and I guess they'll grieve and be sad, but life will go on. Time will pass, they'll move on, and before long they'll have forgotten me like all the others who die in the games." His eyes closed. His hand tightened into determined fists. "Katniss doesn't have that. Her family needs her to survive. Hawthorne'll bring them what he can, but he can't support both their families, especially since he'll be starting in the mines after school gets out. Without Katniss, her mother and sister will die."

A long silence followed.

"You're a good man Peeta Mellark" Haymitch said solemnly. "It's a pity good men don't last long in the capitol. Most of them are fed to the mutts before they can inspire too much hope. Hope's far too dangerous to keep alive." He stood and moved back towards the garden exit. "Maybe you'll be the exception. Probably not, but it's a start."

Peeta watched him go before burying his face in his hands. He honestly couldn't tell which would be more difficult, revealing his feelings, expressing them openly, or staying alive past the Game's opening bloodbath. Only the next few weeks would tell. But of one thing he was certain. He would do whatever he could to make sure Katniss survived. Yes, it was stupid, foolhardy, and irrational. But such was the nature of love. And love was all he had to offer.

**Not as long as I wanted, but I really wanted to get a chapter out before too long. Please be honest, are the chapters too short? In my other stories the chapters are between five and six thousand words, but for this one their between three and four thousand. Ending the chapter here is mostly okay with me, because it frames the story fairly well, but I still think it's way too short. Originally I had like two other scenes planned for this, but they involve too many time jumps of days and weeks before the games. Please Review! And please answer the question, I really want to know if I've botched this story in terms of chapter length (as you can probably guess I'm a bit self critical) Thanks! Review! Happy Reading!**


	6. The Oracle

Prim had never been overly fond of the forest. She was more than familiar with the various plants that could be used for salves and ointments, the trades of an apothecary. Her mother had been teaching her those things for years. But to actually be there in the woods, surrounded by gargantuan trees with gnarled roots and leaves that concealed any number of wild creatures….no, that wasn't quite her thing.

She was too clumsy. The string of a bow felt awkward and painful between her fingers. And should she ever get an arrow pointed in the right direction, she'd never be able to kill something. Her heart was too soft to take a life.

She knew that, and Gale knew that.

Yet when she'd volunteered to go with him on his next outing for food, to take Katniss' place, he'd agreed nonetheless, and now here they were, tromping through the underbrush at the crack of dawn with only a sliver of orange sunlight peering over the canopy veiled horizon.

The leather hunting boots were far too big for her, the game bag felt heavy over her shoulder, and the bow was an unfamiliar appendage slung over the other. It was a strange experience, being completely out of one's element. It was terrifying and uncomfortable.

Why was she here again? She'd asked herself that a dozen times in the last twenty minutes. There was no way she'd be helpful in terms of hunting. In fact it was all but sure that her presence would just slow Gale, the real hunter here, down. So far only tywo of the two dozen snares he had set up had yielded anything at all, and those two had been recently born rabbits. Not enough meat on them to feed even Gale's youngest siblings.

Without her, he could get something bigger. Creep quietly through the woods, and do his job properly.

Yet she'd come anyway.

Last night's dream was burning, figuratively and nearly literally, into her mind. The images of her sister on fire, sprinting bare as the day she was born across the fabric of existence, Peeta kneeling before her drenched in blood, and the horrible, monstrous face carved from nothingness taunting the green eyed man in chains. Each and every one of these things was still vivid in her mind's eye.

Normally, such vastly strange ideas coming to her would imply that she'd eaten some bad meat, or that fever was ravaging her mind as she lay dying on the floor beside her mother's patients. But she was lucid. Her temperature was normal, and in terms of health she felt absolutely perfect.

That, and what the old man had told her in the streets of the seam.

Come to the forest, and her questions would be answered. That was what he'd said.

Questions were all she really had at the moment. What the dream meant for Katniss, above all.

Because in all the swirling nonsense that had made up the dream, Prim got the overwhelming feeling that whatever they entailed, Katniss was involved. Katniss, and to a lesser extent, Peeta.

Now she had to find out why.

So far all she'd proven herself good for was ruining everything. Inadvertently dooming her protector and sister to the Capitol's wrath in the arena, and proving useless in her absence.

No more.

"You doing alright back there, Prim?" Gale called from about twenty paces in front of her as he moved a low hanging branch aside so they could pass, the high-summer pine needles brushing against the fabric of his jacket as he did so.

"Bag too heavy for you?"

Too heavy for her? All she was carrying was the rabbits, less than three pounds of meat, and a set of skinning tools sewn into the inside of the bag.

"I'm good," she called back, perfectly disguising the pinprick of annoyance from her voice. "Many more snares to go?"

"About six," he answered, tree branch snapping back into place as they snapped past the pine tree that crested the top of a small moss covered rise to their left. "They're pretty spread out though. 'Bout three miles left to go before the last one. Need a rest yet?"

She shook her head and he nodded.

Gale's pale gaze brought a twang of sadness to Prim's heart. He wasn't fully there with her. In body, he was here in the woods, in mind, he was off with Katniss in the capitol. Her absence was taking his toll on both of them, and it seemed even someone as strong as Gale, who was known in town for near-open disdain for the tyranny of the capitol, was crumbling inside with the absence of his hunting partner.

Ten minutes passed in complete silence, only broken by breaking of twigs underfoot and the sounds of Mockingjays singing to each other between the trees.

"The interviews are tonight, aren't they?" Gale asked idly, not looking back. His strides were confident and sure footed. "The ones with Flickerman, I mean."

"Yeah," Prim conceded. "They are."

She, Gale, and the whole district had been waiting with bated breath for those. The interviews would be the first public appearance of the tributes since the opening ceremony. How had being in the clutches of evil affected the two of them? And, if it had effected them, how much of that would show on their faces?

No doubt Peeta would play the charismatic stallion, deftly using his own words to play off Flickermans. That was a good approach to win the crowd. Katniss on the other hand would probably just sit in silence, face impassive and cold as iron. A brave refusal to bow before the horrors before her, but not much help in terms of sponsorship and viewer appeal. The things that really mattered.

"She'll be fine, Gale," she assured in a soothing voice usually only reserved for Lady.

He turned sharply, wearing a clearly false smile.

"I know she will be. None of that capitol shit's gonna bring Catnip down… It's just that."

Honestly, what happened next Prim should have seen coming. In fact, she kind of did see it coming. As he spoke a large, looming shadow had grown out of the dark of the woods. It was large, yet swift at the same time, with a pair of enormous horns that twisted as they grew upward from the beast's head.

A scream caught in her throat, and she stumbled backwards believing fully that the next thing she'd seen would be enormous jaws eviscerating Gale in a shower of blood and shredded clothing. She expected to watch him die.

Instead of teeth or claws, it was a wooden cudgel that struck Gale, lightly on his left temple.

He collapsed in a heap on the forest floor, limbs tangling with his bag and his bow as he fell. The beast stepped over his victim, scratching the batch of it's head in an almost bashful fashion.

"Sorry about that," said the monster, tossing it's cudgel aside. "Didn't mean to scare you. Or hurt this fella." He nudged Gale with a foot, which, Prim could see, was actually a cloven hoof. "He should be okay. I have no meat to my swing, at most he'll just have a bruise." He paused at her positively terrified look.

The creature before her was what could only be described as a monstrous goat man. His upper torso was that of a bare chested man, if a little matted by dirt and moss growth. Beneath the chest however, it's legs were covered in fur just as curled as the hair atop it's head. Hair, that, was almost completely unnoticeable between the pair of enormous horns that curled backwards as they grew to their nearly three foot zenith. It's feet were hooves, and it's chin was plumed with a curled beard.

"Never seen a satyr before, have you?" the goat man asked the terrified girl. His lips curled upward in amusement. "Most people haven't these days. Sorry I scared you, Prim. Name's Grover, Grover Underwood," he offered her a seemingly human hand.

Prim hesitated. If she had any common sense whatsoever she'd roll over, clamber to her feet, and flee as fast as humanly possible. Any other option was liable to get her devoured by this subhuman monstrosity. Yet, as she looked upward, she couldn't help but meet this 'Grover's' eyes.

His eyes were kind. Sincere.

Giving an internal shrug of her shoulders, Prim, took the offered hand and let Grover help her to stand. If she ran he'd no doubt catch her and devour her anyway. May as well take the courtesy now, even if it was false.

"How..how do you know my name?" she asked the first of a thousand questions in a timid, shaking voice that made her terror more than clear. Again Grover smiled.

"A mutual friend told me," he picked at a bit of leaf clinging to one of his horns. "He told you to come here about your dreams, didn't he?"

A mutual friend…

Prim's brows shot straight up her forehead. For a moment she forgot the strangeness of who she was speaking to, and her entire form perked up with excitement.

"The old man I met in the seam?" she asked, trying and failing to sound calm and level in demeanor. The satyr, as he called himself, paused for a moment before laughing high and melodiously, a sharp note that seemed to breath with the forest and slide off the leaves like freshly fallen dew drops. A shiver dribbled down Prim's spine. The cries of far off animals echoed in her ears, merlins and crows and hogs and the calls of deer.

"Old man? Is that what he appeared to you as? Weird. Usually he shows up as a merman or a dog or…something like that. Then again, not many mermen around here, and a talking dog would've probably just freaked you out. Kinda like I just did," he scratched the back of his neck again, a little awkwardly.

"What are you?" she asked, the second of a thousand question. Next would probably be why he'd seen fit to knock Gale out cold with a wooden stick. She'd get there eventually.

"A satyr," Grover replied. "A spirit of the wild. Sort of, it's a little more complicated than that but that's the gist of it." He glanced around at their surroundings, the trees and the shrubs and the quiet voices of nature that echoed silently. "There aren't many wild places left….this place is one of few…." He turned back to the girl, shaking himself back into focus. "We need to get going. Our friend'll be waiting for us."

"Why did you attack Gale?" another question. The trembling of her hands still went strong, clutching at the fabric of her clothes in tiny lunging movements. Clutching for anything solid and real, that didn't defy all perceptions of reality and understanding.

"Sorry about that," he said again. "I don't think I hurt him, he's a sturdy looking guy. It's just we have some important to talk with you about, and having a mortal around would just make things even more complicated than they already are." He pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes and shaking his head. "Gods know things have never been simple since Perc' came into the picture, but still."

"Mortal?"

It was a strange use of the word he'd employed, using it as a noun. Having worked with the sick and the dying for years, Prim knew full well the meaning of mortality. It applied to everything that lived. All things had to die. Her father's demise had proven that many years ago. But never had she heard someone refered to as _a _mortal.

Grover nodded. His hoofs shifted uneasily on the forest floor.

"Right, you won't have heard that term before. No worries though, Percy will explain everything when we get there. That's our friends name by the way, Percy Jackson. A proven maniac, and the single best friend I've ever had. I never did have good judgment. I could've just hung out with the Demeter girls, but no, I had to pick the one involved with everything heroic and apocalyptic….not sure if that says something bad about him, or my lack of people skills," his head was shaking as he said this, but he was grinning.

"Come one," he offered her his hand again. "We need to get going. You still want answers, right? I know what you must be feeling now, confusing, fear. That's all common for this kind of thing. Dreams are never good for half-bloods, especially someone with your burgeoning talent. But Percy and I can you help you with this, if you'll let us. You're friend will be fine here for a while. Don't worry. So, are you in?"

Prim pondered the offered hand.

For some reason she found she trusted this 'satyr'. That didn't really make any sense of course. He was a stranged horned creature who had bludgeoned her older brother figure and now claimed to have seemingly mystical solutions to her strange dreams. And Grover said he was the one who lacked common sense.

After one more moment, she took his hand, and they were off.

Grover lead her through the woods in a series of winding, curving paths that didn't seem to have any correlation with the few pathways that Katniss and Gale had beaten into the terrain over the years, or with anything at all really. It seemed random and chaotic, twisting in one direction before doubling back and going in the opposite direction.

However, after nearly twenty minutes of silent walking they come upon a clearing that formed a rough circle of stones jutting out from the ground at strange angles, and ancient trees that grew in great bunches. Poppies and other wildflowers sprinkled the ground in colorful intervals, cutting swathes through the bottle green grass. From above, the place would look like a beautiful painting etched into the face of the world.

On one of the larger rocks sat a man in an orange t-shirt and blue pants. A mane of unruly black hair spilled down his back, and he twiddled his thumbs in an almost contented matter.

"That you Percy?!" Grover called as they grew closer, the man's features growing clearer with each step.

The man looked up from his thumbs, and Prim gasped.

A pair of shimmering sea-green orbs stared back at her. The same eyes as the old man who'd given her the strange coin that now sat in her bag.

The man called Percy grinned, leaping to his feet and throwing his arms out in a wildly enthusiastic gesture.

"G-man!" he cried. "Good to see you man. Horns still growing, I see. Still sure about keeping those? They'd look awesome if you cut 'em Hellboy style."

Grover rolled his eyes, enveloping the man in a brotherly embrace.

"Not gonna happen Perc'. Juniper happens to like my horns. It's an attraction that goes over most humans heads."

The two broke apart, and Percy turned to Prim, smiling kindly.

"You're the old man from before, aren't you?" she asked breathlessly, voice barely above a whisper. Her heart beat jumped a thousand fold, fear grew in her chest despite herself. Why was she sudddenyl so afraid of a man who'd shown her nothing but kindness? Was it his ability to seemingly take any form he wished? Or was it the strange, otherworldly glow that surrounded his form and framed his silhouette against the sun?

"That's me," he replied. Lowering himself to one knee, he met her eye to eye. "Nice to meet you properly, Prim. I'm Percy Jackson."

He offered his hand, but she didn't shake it. Handshakes didn't mean much to people of this time period, Percy supposed. Still, old habits were hard to kill. Even after eight centuries of being dead.

"What are you?" it was the second time she'd asked that question in the last hour. Not a habit she'd expected to develop.

Percy took a breath, eyes flickering downward in a moment of consideration.

"I'm a god…" he paused. "A long time ago, I was a normal man," Grover snorted. "Okay, a sort of normal man. I used to be a demi-god, a half god. But now I'm different." He continued speaking, knowing full well that the words 'god' and 'demi-god' would mean literally nothing to her. Dear gods, this would be difficult. Explaining how being a half blood worked had been hard enough back at camp, where the kids would have at least a cursory knowledge of Greek mythology. This girl knew none of that, and probably didn't even know what the word 'mythology' meant.

"Gods" he went on. "Are the embodiment of ideas and concepts. God of weather, god of fire, god of war, all of those exist. And throughout time, the gods have made a habit of taking human lovers, and as a result demigods, half-bloods, half mortals half gods are born. A long time ago I was a demigod. The son of Poseidon, the ocean god. Back then, when Panem was stil called North America, we were trained to fight monsters… Your parents were trained like that too, though to a lesser extent."

"My…my parents?" she asked, voice catching. The god of heroes nodded.

"You're parents are both half-bloods Prim. Your mother is the daughter of Persephone, the goddess of springtime. Your father was the son of Apollo, the god of the sun, medicine, music, archery, and prophecy." He paused again. This was a lot to take in, he of all people should know that. "You and your sister are what are called mixed-bloods. Demigods with two god grandparents, instead of a single god parent. This is where your knack for medicine come from, Prim. Where your sisters skill with a bow and her singing voice come from….you had some dreams about your sister, didn't you? Vivid ones, scary ones?"

Prim nodded.

"She was on fire, and…and she was running. Then Peeta Mellark was there, and so were you, in chains…it didn't make any sense." Percy chuckled. Chains, now that didn't sound pleasant.

"Demigod dreams usually don't. To half-bloods, dreams come as warnings. As signs of the future and of our fears and our hopes. But for you Prim, it's different. You have a power given to a select few. The last person to have it was a mortal, one of my closest friends. Rachel. Like her, you have the power of prophecy. What you dreamed was the future Prim, what's going to happen to the world. A war is coming, Prim, a war that will bring down the capitol, that will save the world. And your sister is going to be at the center of it all."

If the fear lining her face was intense before, now there was nothing but fear.

"A war?" she asked. "But the game's-"

"She's going to win the games, Prim," Percy assured her. Determination was dripping from his tone. "I've made sure of that. She's going to come out of this alive. What matters most isn't the games, it's what happens after."

"You have a part to play as well Prim," Grover said from off to the side. "You can help Katniss. What you saw was an incomplete vision. The potential for sight is there, but you need something else to see the future properly. That's why we brought you here, to make this offer."

"In the demigod community there's always been an oracle," Percy explained, his hands had found their way to the girls shoulders, giving periodic comforting squeezes. Being a father had taught him a few things about calming a distressed child. "Someone who holds the spirit of the Oracle of Delphi. Rachel was the last oracle, and now, the world needs a new one. That's you Prim, can you-"

She nodded in almost frantic agreement.

"Yes," she said. Anything that would help her sister, anything that could save her from that black chaotic, laughing face in her dreams, she would do. But Percy held up a hand stopping her.

"The power of foresight comes at a cost Prim. Costs that you have to hear before you accept. The oracle must remain a virgin to keep her power….you know what that means, don't you?"

Prim nodded solemnly. She'd helped deliver babies before. She'd always wanted a family, something her sister and her had differed in. But now that meant nothing. The casual mention of her sister winning the indomitable games was nothing. She believed that already, crazy as it was. All that mattered now was the future. And how she could help to shape it.

"It means I can never have children," she said, her own words piercing her like a knife, rendering useless the womb she would now never use. "I'll do it," she said. "If it helps Katniss, I'll do it."

Percy smile saddened.

"This is a very brave thing you're doing, Prim. Thank you."

From the pocket of his blue pants he pulled a large gold amulet etched with a sunburst a bow. Deep within it's metalwork, it glowed with an ethereal green light.

"Your grandfather sent this for you," he told her. "The spirit of the oracle, just for you. You'll meet him in person one day, I promise, but for, just take a deep breath, and let the change come.

The amulets chain slipped around her throat.

Green light exploded from her eyes, immense energy surging through every pore of her being. She shook where she stood, convulsing almost violently as the oracles spirit merged with her own. Her eyes became green beacons that made the sun above seem dull in comparison.

Prim collapsed, and the prophetic images came in a raging torrent.

Peeta kneeling before Katniss covered in blood, offering her a strange jar.

Katniss and Peeta on a bed befitting only the capitol, their naked formed so thoroughly intertwined that it was unclear where one started and the other began.

Katniss alone in a white room, staring at her bulging stomach.

Percy, drenched in golden blood, doing battle with a cloud of eternal, swirling nothingness, his sword swinging in vain.

Gale's face split in two, one half his normal olive face with ashen seam eyes, the other a blonde pale skinned boy with a scar beneath a blue eye.

A spiky haired girl with a bow struggling with Gale, their gazes boring into one another like mining drills into the side of a mountain.

And the last image was this. Katniss, form engulfed in flames as she contemplated the blue green orb that was the world shimmering in the palm of her hand.

**Well guys, it's been over a year. And I'm sorry. I know there isn't really any excuse, expect that I sort of lost interest in both fandoms. But I was rereading some of the reviews, and decided to get back to it. You can expect updates regularly now. I promise. **

**Again, I am so very sorry for keeping anyone who liked this story waiting. **

**This chapter was fairly short, but I wanted to keep it to a self contained scene. So the next chapter will be long, with multiple scenes. See you then. **


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